Favre Is NFL's First $100 Million Man

Brett Favre, the only NFL player to win the MVP award three
times, will finish his career with the Green Bay Packers.

"I do want to be a Packer for life," Favre said Friday from
his home in Kiln, Miss., after the 31-year-old quarterback and the
team announced a lifetime extension of his contract via
teleconference.

"I couldn't envision myself playing with another team," Favre
said. "Don't want to. If that was to ever come up, I probably
would just retire. I've made enough money to where I don't need to
jump ship and go somewhere else. It was just important to me to
stay here."

Favre said that when he grew up, "you could almost name every
player at every position for years on the same team, and that was
your team. Nowadays, it's hard to say that. And I really feel like
the Packers, more so than any team have made it a point to keep
their players in house."

Coach Mike Sherman said the pact — the first lifetime contract
in club history — "not only ensures Brett will finish out his
career here in Green Bay, but also ensures the organization that we
have the services, the talent and the leadership of the very best
quarterback in the National Football League in the years to come."

Deal Brokered for Salary Cap Reasons

The extension reportedly will be for 10 years, making Favre the
NFL's first $100 million player. His contract would top the $90
million contract the Washington Redskins gave halfback Stephen
Davis last year.

However, Favre's contract, which includes a $10 million signing
bonus, is essentially a six-year deal for salary cap purposes.

Favre said he renegotiated not because he had fallen behind
other players of lesser talent but instead to help the Packers
surround him with a supporting cast to make another Super Bowl run.

"I've always said that I make great money and I meant that,"
Favre said. "This was just an opportunity to enable the Packers to
have some cap room, solidify my future with the Packers and, if you
want to say not worry about it again, that's another way to look at
it."

The final few years of the contract include highly inflated
salaries that Favre will never earn. He has said he doesn't see
himself playing beyond 2006.

"Brett has been the signature player for this franchise, and
one of the signature players for the entire NFL, and this contract
reflects that status," team negotiator Andrew Brandt said.

Levens Takes Pay Cut

Favre holds the NFL record for consecutive starts by a
quarterback at 141 games. And that's despite thumb, elbow and ankle
injuries the past two years.

He has the highest winning percentage (.645) among NFL
quarterbacks with 50 or more regular-season starts, based on a
91-50 career record, and his 255 TD passes are the most by a
quarterback over the last nine seasons. He's also thrown for 3,000
or more yards nine straight seasons, tying Dan Marino's NFL mark.

Favre was honored as MVP in 1995, '96 and '97. He guided Green
Bay to two Super Bowls, a victory over New England in 1997 and a
loss to Denver in '98.

Before renegotiating his contract to allow the Packers to shave
about $4 million off his 2001 salary cap number, Favre had three
years and $21 million left on the seven-year, $47.25 million deal
he signed in 1998.

His base salary was going to be $6.3 million next season and his
salary cap number $9.474 million.

Favre's agent, Bus Cook, and Brandt completed the contract by
Thursday's deadline, allowing the Packers to get below the 2001
salary cap of $67.4 million.

The Packers also managed to persuade center Frank Winters and
halfback Dorsey Levens, two other key components to the team's
resurgence in the 1990s, to take significant pay cuts this week.

Ron Wolf, who is retiring as Green Bay's general manager on June
1, found Favre on Atlanta's bench in 1991 and traded for him in
1992.

Wolf said he regrets not giving Favre a better supporting cast
in recent years. Favre challenged that notion, saying the Packers
were done in by injuries and skyrocketing salaries in free agency
that stripped them of some of their Super Bowl contributors in the
late 1990s.